Fed's Miran: Cutting interest rates again in December would be 'a reasonable action'

Newly appointed Federal Reserve governor Stephen Miran said Wednesday he thinks it “would still be a reasonable action” for the Fed to continue cutting interest rates, including at its last meeting of the year on Dec. 9-10.

Miran, in an interview on Yahoo Finance, cited earlier policy projections calling for three rate cuts in 2025.

“The natural question that would follow from that is has anything changed?” he said.

Acknowledging the lack of official economic data due to the government shutdown, Miran said that inflation has come in below expectations and the labor market continues to trend steadily.

The Fed voted to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point last week, bringing the target range to 3.75%-4%. Miran dissented — as he also did in the September meeting — preferring a jumbo half-point cut.

His goal, he said, is to get to a neutral policy stance — a level designed to neither spur nor slow growth.

The key difference between him and his colleagues at the Fed? “I want to get there faster than everybody else,” Miran said. “It’s not that the destination is really all that different.”

Read more: How the Fed rate decision affects your bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and investments

Since last week’s policy meeting, a growing chorus of Fed officials has expressed concerns about inflation and reservations about cutting rates again in December.

Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee said on Yahoo Finance that he is undecided about a December cut. Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly echoed similar sentiments in separate speeches on Monday. Kansas City Federal Reserve president Jeff Schmid said he favored no rate cut at last week’s policy meeting.

That appears to make Miran something of an outlier in pushing for further cuts.

“Anything can happen between now and December. There could be new information, there could be surprises, there could be shocks. Things that we don’t expect could occur,” he said. “But barring new information that would make you really change your forecast a lot, I would think it would … still be a … sort of consistent, reasonable action … to continue on the path that we’ve been on.”

Jennifer Schonberger covers the Federal Reserve, Congress, the White House, the Treasury, the SEC, the economy, cryptocurrencies, and the intersection of Washington policy with finance. Follow her on X @Jenniferisms and on Instagram.

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